WARNING: Due to the nature of its narrative, it is all but impossible to describe the tropes in Dear Esther without spoiling the crap out of it. If you have not experienced it yet, do not read any further.

Dear Esther contains examples of the following tropes:

Arc Number: 21. "There are twenty-one connections in the circuit diagram of the anti-lock brakes, there are twenty-one species of gull inhabiting these islands , it is twenty-one miles between the Sandford junction and the turn off for home. All these things cannot, will not, be a co-incidence!"

One of the tunnels in the caves is particularly dense with luminescent scrawlings, making it somewhat unnerving to walk through.

Mind Screw: What makes it even harder to tell what happens is that the basic events of the story change depending on playthrough. Even with such simple matters as how the narrator reached the island; sometimes he is a willing hermit, seeking solace, where in others he is a sailor who has been marooned. And at times, the line between the player character and the narrator blurs - are you someone tracing the footsteps of that hermit, or are you rambling as you go on?

Mysterious Watcher: Occasionally, off in the distance, you will see dark figures observing you, or walking the path themselves.

Narrator: "Dear Esther, I sometimes feel as if I've given birth to this island..."

Nothing Is Scarier: Not exactly a horror game, but the lack of enemies and activity serve to make the island very haunting. The creepy music in the caves doesn't help much.

Ontological Mystery: Why are you visiting this island? Who is the narrator? Who is Esther? Who built the mast? Who painted all these molecules and messages on these surfaces? Is the island real or is it a dream? The game constantly prompts all these questions, and never quite gives concrete answers.

Purple Prose: The narrator does tend to speak in rather flowery language. Some critics pointed this out in reviews.

Randomly Generated Levels: Subtly done. In every new playthrough, some objects and elements will appear in different locations and bits of the narration will change.

The biggest change from playthrough to playthrough is how Esther died. In some tellings, the narrator himself was the drunk, and Paul an innocent bystander, making the narrator filled with self loathing. In others, Paul was not intoxicated, and the narrator bemoans fate and the happenstance that lead to it. In others again, Paul was intoxicated, and the narrator comes to terms with Esther's death.

Sanity Slippage: The narrator's memories begin to blur together as he walks through the island.

"The moon over the Sandford junction, headlights in your retinas. Donnelly drove a grey hatchback without a bottom, all the creatures of the tarmac rose to sing to him."note "All manner of symbols crudely scrawled across the cliff face of my unrest. My life reduced to an electrical diagram. All my gulls have taken flight; they will no longer roost on these outcrops. The lure of the moon over the Sandford junction is too strong."

Scenery Porn: The landscapes are exceptionally well-done, and considering there is nothing but the visuals and the narrator's voice along the way, it's something you're bound to notice.

Silent Protagonist: He does have very noisy shoes though. It's not entirely clear if the Narrator is the same person as the protagonist too, but if they are, then he's quite chatty.

Sinister Silhouettes: Every now and then you'll see a shadowy figure standing or walking around in the distance. If you're quick enough, you can run right up to them, but they won't respond to you and will sometimes even vanish instantly.

Soft Water: It's not like there's any way to take damage in the first place, but the tiny pools at the bottom of certain chasms would not protect against the falls they are meant to break.

Super Drowning Skills: Dip your head below the ocean's surface for too long, you drown. Later inverted when you can stay underwater in the cave pools for as long as you want.

Story Breadcrumbs: A deliberate choice for the game structure, related through sporadic and semi-random narration. The developers said later in presentations that they felt being sparse with specifics and only giving them sporadically helped make Dear Esther a much more engaging narrative, teasing the player's speculation to get them to invest more of themselves in what story they do parse.

Story-to-Gameplay Ratio: On the highest end of the story side of the scale, near the Visual Novel genre. There are several important factors that could not be incorporated in a film, however, such as semi-randomized dialogue and the ability for every player to pace themselves at their own rate.

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